That was the day the 2 percent payroll tax holiday ended and wage earners nationwide saw their Social Security taxes jump.

Not that they shouldn't have.

We need to keep Social Security strong, and while it made sense to offer Americans struggling through the Great Recession a bit of relief, it had to come to an end.

Still, that's little consolation to someone whose raise was wiped out by the 2 percent increase.

It's worse still for the person who hasn't had a raise in years.

It's really bad for the person who's had their hours cut.

Most of us were aware the higher tax was coming - more correctly, coming back - but it wasn't until we opened the first paycheck of 2013 that exactly what that meant became real.

The increase was part of the agreement - such as that Dec. 31 pact was - to avoid the "fiscal cliff" of across-the-board federal spending cuts, an end to the Bush era federal income tax cuts and end to the payroll tax holiday on Social Security taxes.